Banking secrecy

The protection of bank customers from information provided by the bank to third parties, including the (tax) authorities. This is ensured to varying degrees in the individual countries. – In Switzerland, banking secrecy has been enshrined threefold, namely – in the Civil Code (privacy), – in the Code of Obligations (contractual relationship client-bank) and – in the Banking and Stock Exchange Act (since 1934 an official offense: a breach of banking secrecy must be punished ex officio, even if there is no private plaintiff); this was mainly the reason for Switzerland’s position as an international financial center. – In Germany, authorities have the power to query accounts; the Federal Constitutional Court explicitly confirmed this as legal in July 2007. Abroad, the German intelligence service (Bundesnachrichtendienst; Federal Intelligence Service) acts against the law of the states concerned, as happened in February 2008 with respect to the Principality of Lichtenstein, which is completely defenseless against its large neighbor. – See badwill, bank information, gnomes of Zurich, helvetophobia, identity verification obligation, account disclosure, account freeze, account, false, customer data information obligation, nominee, registration money, straw man, confidentiality, interest island. – Cf. BaFin’s 2005 Annual Report, p. 186 (number and principals of account retrievals), p. 187 (since April 1, 2005, also disclosure for purposes of tax authorities) and the respective BaFin Annual Report.

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University Professor Dr. Gerhard Merk, Dipl.rer.pol., Dipl.rer.oec.
Professor Dr. Eckehard Krah, Dipl.rer.pol.
E-mail address: info@ekrah.com
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Ernst_Merk
https://www.jung-stilling-gesellschaft.de/merk/
https://www.gerhardmerk.de/